Knitting before bed is relaxing - just ask Katy Perry!

30th December 2013

If you regularly find yourself tossing and turning in bed, unable to switch off and get to sleep, then you might want to leave your technology at the door and pick up some knitting needles and colourful yarn instead.

Katy Perry has strongly recommended knitting and crocheting instead of browsing the internet on her smartphone at night after discovering that it helped her to relax.

Speaking to talk show host Alan Carr, she explained she has been a knitter for some time, but has also branched out into crocheting - and has started doing both last thing in the evening.

"It puts me in a relaxed state ... when we go to bed, most times the last thing we do is look at our phone and we fill our minds with Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan twerking, and all of a sudden you go to bed and have all these dreams," Katy commented.

"I thought maybe it'd be better for my subconscious and my dreaming just to like, do a bit of crocheting before I go to bed," she added.

The technique seems to be working for the famously highly-strung singer, but Katy also revealed that she's making herself useful during these bedtime knitting sessions too - she is all set to make her yet-to-be-born baby niece a blanket.

Research has long suggested that technology is stopping many of us from getting enough rest; the bright light emitted by smartphones is believed to trick the brain into thinking it's daylight and producing the hormone melatonin, which suppresses sleep.

In contrast, evidence suggests that knitting creates a state of meditation similar to mindfulness, while the rhythmic repetition and automation has been found to encourage serotonin production by allowing the brain to rest.

Earlier this year, a poll by Potter's Herbals found that nearly 45 per cent of respondents said they are unable to switch off when they go to bed.

However, 44 per cent of them also admitted that their smartphones and tablet computers stop them from dropping off. Perhaps it's time to swap Facebook and Twitter for knitting and purling before bedtime for these wakeful people.